South Korean casino operator Paradise Co Ltd reported a 14.3 percent year-on-year fall in casino sales in May, to KRW59.86 billion (US$51.2 million).
Judged month-on-month, May casino sales were up 6.7 percent compared to April.
The year-on-year decline in casino sales was caused by a 14.8 percent decrease in table game sales during the month of May, to KRW56.68 billion. Machine game sales fell 2.6 percent to approximately KRW3.18 billion, the firm said in a filing to the Korea Exchange.
Paradise Co currently operates a network of five foreigner-only casinos located in three major cities in South Korea and on the country’s holiday island of Jeju.
The firm is also constructing a foreigner-only casino resort called Paradise City, in Incheon, near the main international airport serving the country’s capital Seoul. The scheme is scheduled to open in April 2017.
In May the table drop recorded by Paradise Co in its current operations – the amount of cash exchanged for chips by customers at casino tables – fell by 18.6 percent year-on-year to KRW411.55 billion. Judged month-on-month, table drop was down 0.9 percent in May.
Across the first five months of 2016, table drop fell 8.0 percent year-on-year, to nearly KRW2.06 trillion.
The May casino sales result means that in the five months to May 31, Paradise Co’s casino sales were down 6.0 percent year-on-year, to approximately KRW253.91 billion. Table game sales were down 5.7 percent year-on-year in the first five months of 2016, while machine game sales declined by 11.2 percent.
The casino operator recorded a 62.1-percent fall in net profit in the first quarter of 2016.
